Siva SCEO of IRA.ai Published On: Saturday, September 03, 2016 Views 2967

"If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead you anywhere."

Siva is an innovator and an entrepreneur by passion. He is one of those individuals who took cognizance of cloud computing and launched a startup with an aim of helping a million businesses move to cloud by 2017. He has an expertise in business development, product management and cloud computing. He started his career as a business analyst and gradually climbed the ladder of success. His latest venture IRA.ai is an enterprise class yet disruptive cloud consulting company. They help you implement, migrate and optimize your applications in cloud.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

IRA is an Artificial Intelligence platform built for enterprises. IRA is powered by deep learning algorithms and natural language processing modules, which helps to interpret customer messages/mail, classify them, analyse the sentiment and respond back with the most accurate response. In short, IRA is your customer support Rock Star. IRA comes in four flavors today:

IRA Chat – handles real-time chat conversations in Chat Apps, FB Messenger, and Websites etc.

IRA Mail – handles complex mail replies and integrates with all popular mail and helpdesk engines. 3. IRA Social – handles real-time social interactions on Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media platforms.

IRA Senti – tracks the customer sentiment across various channels like Mail, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

We believe that smart engineering can bring about a massive change in the way we live. Today we are witnessing the impact of technology innovations in daily life, starting with smart phones to Tesla’s electric cars. These stories have one thing in common – build meaningful technology products which improves the quality of human life and that’s our inspiration.

What is your life mantra?

There is no alternate to hard work and right intentions. The focused you are, the higher you achieve.

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

Understanding where to start. But we figured out this piece ourselves. AI engines and Bot engines were attracting more adoptions in the west, while we were still grappling to understand their real-life applications. Luckily, we stumbled upon few consulting projects which led to the idea of building our own AI engine which meets enterprise needs. So the start was difficult and fuzzy, but once we crossed the initial few months of product development, we now have a clear sight of success ahead.

How did you overcome those challenges?

There were doubts in corner of our hearts if we will be able to pull this off. The thought that high-tech need not necessarily come from US or Japan led us to try our hand at building an enterprise grade Artificial Intelligence platform. As a result, IRA was born. Today we challenge and win massive enterprise deals competing with established players in AI & Chatbot industry.

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

We are completely bootstrapped as we were in R&D mode. Our mainstream Cloud & Big Data consulting business – Powerupcloud, was able to fund the R&D expenses of IRA.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

Work hard like there is no tomorrow

Be humble and respect all

Focus on your work and don’t allow room for distractions

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

Business Apps Wunderlist Asana Slack Skype Hangouts Google Apps (Mail) Google Drive CamScanner Hobby Apps Quora Duolingo Travel Apps Uber UTOO Booking

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

Have a clear set of to-do organized every morning. Set aside 15 minutes to do this every morning as this will help you plan the day better.

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

Taking phone to bed.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

Make Powerupcloud as the #1 Cloud Company in APAC and IRA as the most used Artificial Intelligence engine in the planet.

If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

A mechanical engineer or a sports person.

What are your top three getaway destinations?

Leh Ladakh: This is paradise in earth. The structures you see while driving up from Manali to Leh are very alien to our earth.
Cherai Beach, Kerala: Always like this place for shallow & peaceful beaches.
Kothagiri: Chillier than Ooty and low on pollution. Always a great place to spend a weekend.

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